Words from ‘the mouths of babes’ are worth remembering

Natalie Hawks

Published 9:56 am, Thursday, March 6, 2014

Don’t kids just say the craziest things sometimes? I mean, that old saying “out of the mouths of babes” didn’t just pop into existence randomly one day. Not a chance. The way I see it, there are two possibilities for the inspiration of that phrase. The first is that an observer witnessed the profound words uttered by a cherubic semi-presaint well beyond their age in wisdom. And the second possibility?

Those words (memorable for better or worse) were uttered by a toddler or a fifth-grader — guaranteed fact. I have a small book that I keep in my classroom. In this book I try to write down funny things my students say. Today, I would like to share a few with you. I hope they bring a smile to your face, just as they do mine every time I remember them.

I had a very bright student who loved science (yay!) and was always pushing the boundaries of her knowledge. It was well into the second six weeks when we were studying forces, and discussing pushing and pulling. We talked about gravity, magnetism and how force requires energy and helps us do work. Shortly thereafter, I dropped my pen on the floor. I didn’t have time to think; I just instinctively bent over to pick it up. Suddenly, this bright little girl pipes up and says with all seriousness: “Hang on, Ms. Hawks. We’re studying forces. So let me use the power of psycho-kinesis to pick up your pen with my mind!” I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was telekinesis. And from then on, I called her Professor.

Running an after-school science club is one of the many enjoyable tasks of my teaching job. It’s where I cut loose and get to do some of the things I couldn’t or didn’t have time to do in class. We play, and the students lead the investigations. You can imagine that these types of meetings can get quite rambunctious. Each participant — along with their parents — signs a permission slip agreeing to maintain passing grades and top-notch behavior. Failure to do so will make them surrender their spot to another eagerly awaiting student.

One day, I called out a boy who was just loosing his mind over designing a contraption to keep a raw egg from cracking when dropped from a substantial height. He glared at me, and I gently reminded him about the contract/permission slip that he and his parents signed upon joining the science club. He looked at me with the strangest most serious face in the universe and said: “Oh, yeah? Well, I failed to read the fine print.” This is the same student who told me later in the year after a really bad day that his “karma train had jumped the track and ran his butt over.” Instant classic.

Finally, a jaunt back to my second year of teaching when I was tutoring two precocious little second-grade boys after school. (I’ll call them E and S.) As a kindness, I gave them each a bag of Hot Cheetos, the ultimate coveted snack for anyone between the age of 2 and the age of I-have-rocketfuel- heartburn. S was ready to rip it open and get down to business. But E quit standing on his chair while shaking the bag of chips. It was as if he remembered something. He quietly stopped S and said: “Wait, S. We have to pray first ’fore we eat.” And E prayed, “Dear Lord Baby Jesus. Bless us for being alive. Bless us for having a chance to go to school and learn more better. And Lord Jesus, please let us eat these Hot Cheetos fast ’fore Ms.

Hawks kills us both.” I had to leave the room.

Natalie Hawks is a fifthgrade science and social studies teacher at Burnet Elementary in Midland ISD.